Content Marketing
Social Media Tip: Brevity Wins
Oct 30 2014
When you are communicating keep it short.
People are overwhelmed.
They have too much information coming at them.
They don’t have time for you.
We learned this through social media, but it applies to everything. Whether it is email, direct mail, a letter… assume that people have limited time to listen to you.
Get them to take away 1 thing (that is all they can remember anyways) vs. cramming everything you want to say into an email.
Ask them to do 1 thing (which they might do) vs. 5 things.
Save the in-depth info for people who really want to learn more.
I thought of this when I was on LinkedIn a few weeks ago and saw the 2 messages below. Which one do you think I actually read and responded to?
Try FREE for 5 Days!
Having written direct marketing copy in all it’s forms over the last 50 years for some of the world’s biggest companies, I can say that length of copy is not the factor. People will read any length of copy providing they can see they will benefit from doing so. The key is in the writing. After all, people still read novels. But yes, they will quickly turn off if you’re boring them.
Best wishes
Brian Sharp
Just to add to my point about copy length, I once wrote a 10 line ad in a newspaper and sold 200,000 pairs of cut-price diamond earrings. It was a great offer. In contrast, to sell a consignment of teddy bears, I wrote a 4 page story (direct mail) about ‘The Bear that came in from the cold.” It worked.
Brian Sharp
Brian – thanks for commenting and you definitely have a good point. There are brands that do well with long copy but it has to be VERY VALUABLE…